Xanadu
by WynterSky
Summary: When Lee is kidnapped to a foreign country, Neji and Tenten go to find him, making a surprising discovery along the way. Neji/Tenten, Lee/undecided
1. Chapter 1: Neji and Tenten are Confused

[A/N: I'm just starting things right and left, aren't I? Don't worry, I'm still working on everything else. I know Lee's the titular character in this, but it's going to be mostly from Neji and Tenten's perspectives because I like them. The entire plot of this takes place during the interim, just FYI.]

Chapter 1: In Which Neji and Tenten are Confused

"Tenten?"

Tenten shifted over a little as Lee dropped down beside her. It wasn't that she didn't like him (Lee was very hard to dislike, although Neji would make the occasional valiant effort at it), but he had little concept of personal space and could get very enthusiastic when he managed to hold still long enough to carry on a conversation. "What is it?" she asked.

"You know a lot about girls, right?"

Lee was talking without Capital Letters, so something was clearly wrong with him. "I suppose so. Why?"

"Why won't Sakura be friends with me?"

"Huh?" This was not the most articulate thing Tenten could have said, but she had been taken rather by surprise.

"I've done all the Youthful Things that Gai said boys should do for their girl friends, but she still won't be friends with me." Frowning a little, Lee tilted his head to one side and Tenten could practically _see_ the little puppy ears which he didn't have but certainly deserved a lot of the time.

Light was beginning to glimmer. "Lee, I don't think you want her to be your girlfriend."

Lee looked as hurt as if Tenten had taken away his green tracksuit. "But I do—"

"No, because _girlfriend_ means that you're in love with Sakura. If you just want to be _friends_ with her, then you need to tell her so...and maybe back off with the Youthfullness a bit because I think all your flowers and Declarations of Undying Love have scared her off."

Much cheered up, Lee sprang to his feet. "Yosh! I will make Sakura be friends with me, or I will run five hundred laps around Konoha and then climb the Hokage Mountain backwards!"

"What was that all about?" Neji asked, coming up behind Tenten as she watched Lee disappear in a cloud of dust.

"I'm not sure," Tenten replied. "Lee was acting kind of strange, though."

"Lee _always_ acts kind of strange," Neji pointed out.

"No, see, that's what I mean! He _wasn't_ acting strange. Isn't that strange?"

"That is...strange," Neji conceded.

Tenten nodded, then stood up. "I've got to get back to the restaurant now, it's almost time for the dinner rush," she said, brushing off her pants.

"Can I come along? It'd be better than going home at the moment," Neji confessed. Tenten understood. She'd heard that Team 8 had been sent out on a mission, and Hinata was the only thing holding the Hyuuga clan together a lot of the time.

"Sure, as long as you don't mind helping out a bit. I could even talk Mom into giving you some of that orange chicken you like."

...

The Feng Huang Diner, while not as well known as some of the restaurants in Konoha (such as Ichiraku's Ramen), still did surprisingly good business and often filled with off-duty shinobi who wanted something a bit different. As shinobi are usually very hungry, this meant that Tenten's parents and assorted cousins had to work like fiends to get enough food out in time. Neji quickly found himself roped into washing dishes.

"Are you sure your parents aren't ninja?" Neji asked during a slight lull, ducking as a carton of chow mein flew over his head to land just so on the To Go counter.

"No, they've just had lots of practice," Tenten called back from across the kitchen. "They've owned this place ever since we got here so that's, what, seven years?"

"_Tenten, we need more onions!_" one of the cousins shouted.

"I'm on it, Chun Fu!" Tenten yelled back. "Neji, toss some over here, will you?"

Neji dried his hands enough to grab several onions from the vegetable bin and throw them to Tenten. Unsheathing a pair of lethal-looking Usuba Bocho, she had the innocent unsuspecting vegetables neatly chopped into exactly sixteen pieces each almost before they hit the counter. She wasn't Konoha's weapon mistress for nothing.

"Thanks!" Tenten called, blinking back tears from the onion fumes. "Oh no, there's nobody on orders," she said, hurrying over to Neji and dropping the chopped onions off with the cooks on the way. "You can do that, right? It's easy," she assured him, pushing him over to the counter. "You just ask what people want and write it down and add it up and take their money and then put the piece of paper over there—" she pointed but rather vaguely "—so the cooks can see it. Okay? I've got to hack up a few chickens."

With that she abandoned him to face a growing line of hungry and impatient ninja. _Free orange chicken free orange chicken free orange chicken!_ Neji thought desperately, and resigned himself to his fate.

...

After half an hour, Neji was exhausted. After an hour, he was wondering why he'd ever been annoyed with Gai's training regimen. After two hours, he was beginning to think that climbing the Hokage Mountain with his teeth actually didn't sound half bad.

"Okay, you can take a break now," Tenten said finally. Neji promptly collapsed across the counter.

"I can't believe you do this every night," he moaned.

"Oh, it's not like this every night. This wasn't that bad, actually. A lot of the time we get a lot more customers than that."

"_More?_" Neji found this very hard to believe. "Tenten, every single shinobi in Konoha came through here! _Twice!_"

"You're just not used to it," Tenten argued. "I'll get some orange chicken and we can—hey, hide!"

Startled, Neji failed to react quickly enough, so Tenten grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him down behind the counter. "Tenten, wha—"

"_Shhhh!_" Tenten whispered insistently. "Lee's here. With _Sakura!_"

"How badly is Lee hurt?" Neji whispered back. "It must be serious if he couldn't get to the hospital."

"No, he's not hurt. They're...talking."

Still unconvinced, Neji activated the Byakugan in order to see through the counter. Sure enough, Sakura and Lee were sitting at a corner booth, just as Tenten had said. Even more strangely, Lee was not professing his Eternal Love to Sakura or falling at her feet. They were, indeed, just talking, in a surprisingly normal, ordinary, not-especially-Youthful manner.

"My brother's the one who brings home all the animals," Sakura was saying. "Right now we have three turtles in a wading pool in the livingroom. The only pet I ever had all my own was a parakeet when I was about seven. Did you ever have any pets?"

"I had a cat," Lee replied. "Gai-sensei brought it back from a mission. It was Very Youthful; it would even run after me when I ran laps around the village. But then it got hit by a cart, so Gai-sensei sent it to a farm so it could get better."

"That's so sad..." Tenten whispered.

Neji moved so Tenten't mouth wasn't directly by his ear. "What's so sad about it?"

Tenten raised one eyebrow, an ability that Neji never failed to be jealous of. "Didn't you ever have a pet 'sent to a farm'?"

"No, I'm branch house, remember? We don't get pets." Actually, none of the Hyuuga clan had pets, unless one counted the ornamental koi pond, but Neji didn't see any reason to mention that. "I don't see what's wrong with it, anyway."

"That's just it! Being 'sent to a farm' is what people tell their kids when a pet _dies_ and they don't want to admit it!" She sighed. "Poor Lee."

Neji nodded in agreement, as that seemed to be what Tenten wanted.

"What are you two doing hiding down there?"

Neji and Tenten jumped guiltily as Tenten's mother loomed over them. Luckily, she didn't wait for an explanation. "Go and serve the customers!" she ordered, putting a menu in Tenten's hands and shoving her towards the seating area. Tenten dragged Neji along with her on the way over.

Lee was still doing the little puppy-dog thing when they reached his table, but other than that he was being less hyperactive than either of them had ever seen him. Luckily, he didn't seem to think that their turning up so suddenly was in any way suspicious. Sakura apparently did, from the way she was looking at them, but she was courteous enough not to say anything.

"Hello, my Youthful Teammates!" he said as they arrived. "What are you doing here?"

"My parents own this restaurant, Lee," Tenten explained. "Here's a menu. What would you like to order?"

"We, um, didn't exactly come here to eat," Sakura said. "We just ducked in here so Naruto would stop following me around."

"Well, how about some tea, then?"

Lee and Sakura both nodded.

"All right, I'll bring some green tea over in just a moment." Tenten smiled in her best waitressly manner and hurried back to the kitchen without actually looking like she was hurrying, Neji following close behind.

"What do you think that's all about?" she whispered as she spooned tea leaves into an infuser. "I've never seen Lee acting like this. Do you really think he's okay?"

"He looked happy enough to me," Neji said.

"But he only said nine words, how are you supposed to judge someone's happiness from that? Go get a couple fortune cookies, they're over there," she added, putting the teapot on a tray with two cups.

Neji obligingly got the fortune cookies for her, but waited behind the counter while she took the tray out.

"My fortune says, 'Every flower blooms at its own season.' Fitting, huh?" he heard Sakura ask as Tenten rejoined him. "What does your fortune say, Lee?"

"Your destiny is in motion," Lee read. "Beware secrets discovered by enemies."

"That's funny," Tenten said suddenly, making Neji jump. "I don't remember writing that one."

...

[A/N: Neji and Tenten are very fun :-)]


	2. Chapter 2: In Which Lee Disappears

Chapter 2: In Which Lee Disappears

Lee and Sakura left soon after they finished their tea, leaving Neji and Tenten no more enlightened. After finally getting the free orange chicken he had been waiting all day for, Neji left as well before Tenten's mother could drag him into washing dishes again.

The sun was setting by the time he arrived back at the Hyuuga clan compound. Cautiously, Neji crept to his room, hoping no one would notice him and ask him to do anything. While there was an agreement that the Bakugan was off-limits inside the compound, a lot of the elders had very sharp hearing. He arrived safely at his room, and promptly collapsed across his bed. He didn't even bother to undress before falling asleep.

Alas, it didn't last. Whoever happened to be arranging the weather that night must have had a personal grudge against Neji, because Konoha was subjected to one of the loudest thunderstorms there had been in years. After a particularly emphatic thunderclap, Hanabi (whose room was on one side of Neji's) ran shrieking into Hinata's room (which was on the other side). Hoping that would be the end of it, Neji tried to go back to sleep.

He had just arrived at a very pleasant dream (which for the life of him he couldn't remember later, although he had a fuzzy idea that Tenten was involved somewhere) when an angry roll of thunder woke up not only him but apparently Hinata and Hanabi as well. Next thing he knew, the door to his room burst open and the two girls ran in.

"Neji-nii-san, c-can we sleep in here?" Hinata asked.

"Yeah, sure, Hinata-sama," Neji replied automatically, before rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

This effort was not particularly successful. While Hinata did make some token attempts to sleep, Hanabi had apparently given up on this objective altogether. Once she started telling ghost stories, the other two also decided that sleep wasn't entirely essential that night.

It was still solidly dark outside by the time Neji had to leave for training, and his two cousins showed no sign of going back to their respective beds anytime soon. In the end, he just left them in the room, deciding that there wasn't much in there that could get ruined, even if Hanabi decided to search his things. Hinata probably wouldn't let her, anyway, but he had long since learned not to leave anything there that he wanted to keep secret.

On that pleasant thought, he made his way out of the compound. The streets were deserted, so he ran through the village without exactly looking where he was going.

"Hey, Neji—watch out!"

"Ten—ow!"

Neji hit Tenten going almost full speed, throwing them both to the ground in front of the Feng Huang Diner. Somehow, Tenten landed on top. She was a lot heavier than Neji had expected, but that was probably from all the metal weaponry she was wearing.

"Why don't you watch where you're going, Neji? If you're going to go bolting through the village like that, you might at least use the Byakugan! What if my grandmother had decided to do her early morning shopping?"

Although Neji didn't like to use the Byakugan outside of combat, she had a good point. "Sorry. We'd better get going or we'll be late."

Tenten nodded. "Right. Well, since you're here, I might as well get some more baozi to eat on the way. Be right back!"

She darted back into the restaurant as Neji got to his feet, quickly returning with a large paper bag full of something that smelled delicious. Neji could feel the heat radiating from the bag from several feet away as they hurried towards Team 10's usual training ground.

When they arrived, they approached cautiously. Lee's greetings could be very enthusiastic. However, today there was no Youthful Green Blur to be seen.

"We can't possibly be early," Tenten pointed out. "The training field's a mess: maybe Lee got bored and left."

"Tenten, 'Lee' and 'bored' are two words that should never be used in the same sentence. Besides, he'd never skip out on training, so he has to be around here somewhere. He'd probably climbing the Hokage Mountain with Gai-sensei or something."

They waited a while for Lee and Gai to turn up, using the time to go through katas. After ten minutes passed with still no sign of the rest of Team 10, Neji decided they had a legitimate reason to worry and turned on the Byakugan to scan the area.

"Do you see anything?" Tenten asked, pausing before she threw a spread of shuriken at a target.

Neji shook his head. "Gai-sensei is not in the village. I can't find Lee either." He increased the distance he was scanning and tried again, then again and again. With Lee's undeveloped chakra system, he was very hard to find. Finally, Neji caught a glimpse of green spandex and bright orange weights. "Found him," he announced. "But..." Lee wasn't moving at all, but he was definitely getting farther away, and that rapidly. Someone was holding him on the back of a horse?

"Neji, what's wrong?" Tenten sounded worried as she picked up on Neji's tension.

"Tenten, Lee's been taken prisoner. We have to go after them _now,_ they're already more than five miles away and moving fast. Come on!"

To her credit, Tenten did not hesitate or ask any questions, only stopping to snatch up a few of her scrolls and stuff a baozi in her mouth before racing after Neji. Once they were outside the village (although the gate guards had been surprised, they had come to expect strange behaviour from Team 10 and let them out without asking why) he explained briefly what he had seen, as they settled into their top speed through the trees.

"Three warriors, all on horseback. One of them had Lee. They weren't wearing headbands, and their clothing was foreign."

"Samurai?" Tenten suggested.

"That is possible; they were wearing armor. They are heading for the coast."

The one drawback of scanning five miles away with the Byakugan was that it made it very hard for Neji to see what was directly in front of him. Normally, this was not an issue, as he would scan from a stationary position before moving into close quarters, but now he was having to continually track a moving object while travelling as quickly as possibly himself. After Tenten had to drag him out of the way of a branch for the third time, she pulled him to a stop.

"You said they didn't look like ninja?" she queried.

"Yes, but—"

"Were they wearing scale armor? Domed helmets? Did you see the emblem of a dragon anywhere?" Tenten demanded.

Neji didn't see the aim of her questions, but answered so they could get moving again. "Yes. None of them wore helmets. The leader had a dragon on the back of his tunic. Let's go now!"

"No, wait, we have to think first! I think they're warriors from Tian Xia, where my family is from. I've seen pictures in my mother's books. If we just chase them, they're sure to outrun us. We just need to head for the port they're most likely to go to. Any ideas?"

"Tsuki no Minato," Neji suggested. "I was reading an economics book that said most of the trade between the shinobi countries and Tian Xia comes through there. If we head straight south-east, we might get there before they do."

"Sounds good to me," Tenten said. "But what were you doing reading about economics?"

"I find it a fascinating subject," Neji explained, "with all the different causes and effects, and decisions with far-reaching consequenses...why, don't you like it?"

"If it helps us find Lee I do," Tenten replied as they started off again.

With the Byakugan off, Neji didn't run into any more branches, so they were able to move a bit faster. However, even moving at top speed it took them several hours to reach the city. Once inside the city, they had to slow to a normal walking pace to get through the crowds, but finally they reached the dock area.

"Okay, where are they?" Tenten growled, readying a kunai.

"Out there," Neji said. "We're too late."

Shading her eyes with her hand, Tenten followed Neji's pointing finger to see a large dark ship moving quickly away from them with the brisk wind. It was already too far to swim to; not that either of them were much good at swimming. "Are you sure Lee's aboard?"

Neji nodded. "In a locked hold."

"I see." Struck by a sudden idea, she ran over to one of the dockhands. "When does the next ship leave for Tian Xia?" she asked.

"Passenger ship? Not for three days. There's that diplomatic ship, the _Oshich_i, but it won't take passengers. It leaves in only a few hours." Having answered the question, the dockhand payed Tenten no further regard and continued his work.

Tenten hurried back to Neji. "Take off your headband," she said, pulling off her own.

"Tenten, I don't see the—"

Not even bothering to let him finish his statement, Tenten yanked Neji's headband off and flung both of them into the water.

"Tenten!" Neji protested, and for a few seconds she actually thought he was going to dive after it.

"Calm down, okay? I know what the seal looks like, it's not a big deal." Neji glared. "To me," Tenten ammended. "Look, we're about to cause an international incident, so it's probably best if they can't tell we're from Konoha."

"What?"

Tenten pointed to the _Oshich_i, bobbing serenely at the end of the dock. "I found us a way to Tian Xia."

...

[A/N: I basically made up all of Tenten's character and backstory from whole cloth. Just so you know, I'm going on vacation the first two weeks of August, so no updates until I get back.]


	3. Chapter 3: In Which a Ship Sets Sail

[A/N: By the way, I hope you enjoyed Hinata and Hanabi's cameo last chapter, because that's about all you're going to see of them in this fic.]

Chapter 3: In Which a Ship Sets Sail

As there was no cargo to load aboard the _Oshichi,_ there were only a few people about her. Neji and Tenten loitered around the other end of the dock until no one was looking, then darted aboard the ship with the help of a genjutsu. There was a guard, but they were able to get below decks before he could detect anything amiss.

"Now what?" Neji asked. His economics reading may have helped them find the port, but it didn't do much good once they were on a ship.

Tenten shrugged. "We find someplace to hide, I guess. There's probably an empty storeroom or something."

A quick search down the corridor revealed three passenger cabins (luckily unoccupied), the captain's cabin, crew quarters, the galley (where Neji insisted on stopping for something to eat) and a ladder leading further down into the ship.

The ladder led into a small storage hold, which was crammed with crates and barrels. Working together, Neji and Tenten managed to rearrange some of them so that they had a small hidey-hole.

"Perfect!" Tenten said finally, as she pulled the last crate into place behind her. "Now nobody will find us." She jammed a flashlight into a crack and turned it on so she could see as well as Neji.

"Until they try to get at the crates behind these, that is," Neji pointed out.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Isn't it nice on the boat though? I just love the rocking feeling."

Neji had just noticed the 'rocking feeling' and did not love it at all. Turning on the Byakugan, he made a quick scan of the ship. "The rest of the crew is boarding," he reported.

"Good, that means we'll be on our way soon. Hey," Tenten said, poking experimentally at one of the barrels with a kunai, "if I pry this board loose, we can get apples out here!"

Within the space of a few seconds, Tenten was chewing on an apple and offering one to Neji. He refused; his stomach did not think much of the idea of eating at the moment.

…

It was one uncomfortable hour before the ship finally began to actually move. Neji realized that if he had thought merely sitting at a dock was unpleasant, being at sea was worse. He wasn't about to show anything in front of Tenten, though. She seemed a born sailor.

"So, what exactly is Tian Xia, and what would they want with Lee?" Neji asked after a few minutes, partially to take his mind off the rocking of the boat. "I know you and your family came from Tian Xia, but that's about all."

Tenten settled her chin in her hand as she considered her reply. "I was too young to remember, so this is what I've heard from my parents and grandmother. About twelve years ago, there was a civil war in Tian Xia. It ended when all of the members of the ruling family were murdered. My family stayed through that, but living got a lot harder, and the man who took over when the Emperor and his family died was greedy and suspicious of everyone. Me and my parents left with my grandmother five years later, when the headman of our village was arrested. I remember coming over here on the boat. It was the first time I had ever been on a boat, and I was excited about the 'big adventure'. I didn't understand why my mother was so sad…Anyway, that's all," she finished. "I don't know what they would want with Lee. I've thought for a while he might have been from Tian Xia, and Gai too, maybe, but I don't see why they would have him kidnapped from all the way across the ocean!"

"There doesn't seem to be much reason in it…but there has to be something," Neji said. "The kidnapping must have been an expensive undertaking."

"Maybe they think he's related to someone back in Tian Xia and want to use him as leverage," Tenten suggested.

"That is—" Neji broke off his sentence as his Byakugan detected people approaching the hold, putting a finger on Tenten's lips to signal silence. Tenten switched off the flashlight, and Neji also deactivated the Byakugan to prevent anyone noticing his chakra. Scrambling over Neji, Tenten peered through a crevice between two crates as footsteps descended the ladder—presumably with people attached to them.

As the footsteps reached the floor of the hold, Tenten squeaked in surprise. Neji couldn't see what she was looking at without the Byakugan, so he trailed his fingers lightly down her arm to get her attention, then began signing into her hand. _Who are they?_

He was fairly sure that Tenten's subsequent anguished flailing was not to be found in the Official Shinobi Code Book. However, before he had a chance to clarify what she was trying to communicate, most of the wall of crates was toppled by a blast of wind. Both of them ducked down behind what remained of their shelter and readied for a fight. Neji activated the Byakugan, and quickly realized what Tenten had been so upset about.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" demanded a voice that was painfully familiar, even though Neji had only heard it a few times before.

Tenten forced her breathing to steady as she slowly stood to face Gaara and his siblings. "Two shinobi on a mission. We mean you no harm."

"Hey, I know you!" Temari said. "You're that Konoha kunoichi from the prelims."

A thick ribbon of sand wrapped around Tenten's chest, lifting her off the wooden floor. Neji stood in a Hyuuga taijutsu ready position, but didn't attack; if he startled Gaara, Tenten's body would be crushed.

"I can feel your heartbeat and breathing through the sand," Gaara said, his voice still cold and even. "I will know if you are lying."

"I'm not," Tenten said. "Lee was kidnapped. Neji and I have to get to Tian Xia to look for him."

"Lee…" Gaara frowned, then his eyes widened in remembrance. The sand whipped back into the gourd on his back, and Neji had to dive to catch Tenten before she fell to the floor. "Temari, Kankuro, come with me," the sand jinchuuriki ordered. "You two, remain here until we have made a decision."

With that, the three Suna ninja ascended the ladder again, leaving Neji and Tenten to figure out what they were supposed to do now.

"Wow," Tenten said after a few seconds. "I thought we might run into some trouble, but I never thought it'd be _Gaara_."

Neji nodded. Running into Gaara again had brought back all the memories from the Chuunin exams, of Lee's horrible injuries and all the worry. He hoped their friend was not in such peril now.

"So, what'll we do if he decides he doesn't want us on his boat?"

"…I don't know," Neji replied. "I thought this was your plan?"

Tenten snorted indignantly. "_Gaara_ was not in my plan. Or Temari or Kankuro. What they doing crossing the ocean, anyway? They're _Suna_ shinobi. They're supposed to be in the desert, not stalking us."

Neji didn't bother to correct her exaggeration.

In any case, they were not kept in suspense much longer. Gaara and his siblings reappeared in a cloud of sand a few minutes later. "You're in luck," Temari said. "We've decided to help you—you sure needed it, anyway." Tenten glared, but the Suna kunoichi ignored her. "So, come up and fill us in."

[A/N: Finally got back to this. What do you think of Tenten's backstory?]


End file.
